FINAL ADAGIO
by Giselle Stancic
On a weekend in 1993, the performance of Gustav Mahler’s brooding Ninth Symphony by a fictive Chicago Philharmonic frames this cleverly constructed murder mystery.
A prologue describes the 1963 murder of Eugenie Leloir, the young wife of Swiss rising star Auguste Leloir, who will conduct the Philharmonic in the Mahler Ninth that evening. Post-murder, the performance is cancelled and the case remains unsolved. Thirty years later, now–world-acclaimed Leloir returns to conduct the Mahler Ninth, but during the first performance the principal oboist collapses and dies, which sets off a convoluted chain of events, including a plot to murder Leloir. Details of reed preparation and the venues of Philharmonic Hall and greater Chicago suggest intimate knowledge of woodwinds and the various Chicagoland crime scenes. Dialogue is lively while the settings and musical details enrich the plot line, and orchestra members and Philharmonic staff are well drawn, especially Mallick, one of the security guards and a former police detective. In fact, Mallick, lazy and almost surly behind the reception desk, steals the show in his post-crime transformation into an inspired gumshoe. Leloir and the orchestra’s music director, Grant Alexander, aren’t as well-developed, however. It strains credulity that courtly Leloir would ignore his obligations as a guest conductor in order to join Mallick in search of clues in the oboist’s death. Leloir and Mallick are surely one of the oddest couples in crime fiction: Mallick left the police force in disgrace because of incompetence; Leloir actively dislikes him but accompanies him in the hope of learning more about his wife’s death. Grant Alexander’s plot to kill Leloir, whom he perceives as a threat to his career, becomes entangled in aspects of Eugenie’s murder that neither Leloir nor Mallick satisfactorily explains. Despite their odd coupling, Mallick and Leloir orchestrate the finale with the aplomb of Poirot at a pace more presto than adagio.
A well-played mystery for music lovers. Bravo!